


maybe one day i'll fly next to you

by kythen



Series: SASO2017 Bonus Round Fills [8]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, SASO2017, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 12:25:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11290689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kythen/pseuds/kythen
Summary: Bokuto starts growing wings one day.





	maybe one day i'll fly next to you

**Author's Note:**

> > _Square: maybe one day i'll fly next to you_   
> 

Bokuto starts growing wings one day.  
  
It used to be a metaphor until Akaashi notices the feathers sticking out of Bokuto's skin one day, tiny pinfeathers sprouting between his shoulder blades, barely there until Akaashi runs a hand lightly over them and feels them soft and _there_ under his palm. Bokuto doesn't seem to notice anything and Akaashi goes home earlier for a good night's sleep that day after practice. Just in case.  
  
But he isn't going mad and he catches Bokuto scratching his back through his shirt over the next few days, frowning absently like there is an itch he can't quite reach. The next time Akaashi sees Bokuto without his shirt on, the feathers have grown and there are more of them, forming into a small but distinct pair of wings against his back.  
  
Bokuto laughs and chats to the other members all the same before turning to his bag for his shirt. Akaashi grabs his arm, stopping him in his tracks, and Bokuto looks at him, his head tilted in confusion. Akaashi fishes his shirt out of his bag for him and pushes it against his chest. He doesn't let Bokuto go until his shirt is on, covering his back and those many, growing feathers. The rest of the clubroom has started to stare but it isn't anything particularly unusual between Akaashi and Bokuto come to think of it and they lose interest in due time.  
  
"Akaashi, what—" Bokuto asks and Akaashi pulls him out of the clubroom, collecting both their bags on their way out. He doesn't stop pulling him along until they have left the school building, gone past the gates and started on the way back home in the early night.  
  
Akaashi finally lets go of Bokuto once they are far away enough from school. Bokuto looks oddly flushed when Akaashi passes him his bag, his eyes darting all over the place and his mouth wobbling around the edges.  
  
"Bokuto-san," Akaashi starts and Bokuto whips his head around to face him, his expression eager. It catches Akaashi off guard and he derails from his previous train of thought to ask, "What?"  
  
"Nothing," Bokuto says too quickly, too guiltily.  
  
"Bokuto-san?" Akaashi tries again, testing the waters, trying to see if Bokuto's odder than usual behaviour has something to do with the wings growing from his back. Maybe he found out that Akaashi knew about them. Maybe he doesn't want anyone to know about them.  
  
"Okay," Bokuto finally cracks after a full five seconds of silence from Akaashi while Akaashi thinks about his options, "Konoha told me this but I didn't believe him because it _can't be_ but this is the moment isn't it?"  
  
"What moment?" Akaashi asks cautiously.  
  
"Are you confessing to me, Akaashi?" Bokuto blurts out. "Is that it?"  
  
"No," Akaashi says bluntly, shocked. Bokuto's unexpected steering of this conversation throws him further off course from what he had wanted to say. How did they get from growing wings to love confessions?  
  
"Oh." Bokuto wilts, trying not to look disappointed and failing. "Konoha was wrong."  
  
"...we'll talk about this later," Akaashi says, trying to steer the conversation back to what he had wanted to say initially. "I did want to speak about something important to you though, Bokuto-san."  
  
"Is it about volleyball?"  
  
"It's about you."  
  
"Me?" Bokuto asks, surprised then hopeful. "Do you like me, Akaashi?"  
  
"I do, but not enough for a confession," Akaashi says and tries not mind how Bokuto's disappointment bothers him. "What I was trying to ask is about the wings on your back."  
  
"The _what_?"  
  
"Are you aware that you're growing wings, Bokuto-san?"

  
\---

**Bokuto-san (11:34pm): u were right akaashi!!!!!!!!!!!!**

  
\---

  
There has never been a record of a winged person in the history of Bokuto's family as far as Bokuto knows or another other person's family history as far as Akaashi knows. But here Bokuto is, the first and possibly only human with wings they both know of. And neither of them know what to do.  
  
His wings keep growing, day after day, week after week, and Akaashi checks their growth obsessively after every practice. He doesn't know why he does it—out of curiosity or fascination or fear? He doesn't know how big they will grow but Bokuto might end up with a full pair of wings at this rate and then how will he be able to live life as who he is? Bokuto has always been an extraordinary person but even actual wings were too much of an extraordinary thing for him. Akaashi could live his entire life by Bokuto's side and he thinks he would never run out of extraordinary things to encounter.  
  
"What do I do about them, Akaashi?" Bokuto asks him with a curious mix of exhilaration and fear in his bright, golden eyes as they crouch in the cluboom after dark, after everyone has gone home for the day.  
  
Akaashi wants to ask him about what Konoha said, why he had thought Akaashi would confess to Bokuto, why he had thought Akaashi had liked Bokuto like _that_ , but there are more pressing issues at hand. Such as the wings growing out of Bokuto's back. They are about a handspan long now and Bokuto can move them as if they have always been a part of him, flapping them enthusiastically but uselessly against his back.  
  
They are kind of cute, reminding Akaashi of the baby birds he has seen in pictures online, but they don't belong there against Bokuto's very human back. He doesn't know what anyone would do to Bokuto if they ever saw what Akaashi sees now. It's a miracle. Or a specimen.  
  
"You have to hide them," Akaashi tells him.

  
\---

  
They get through the inter-highs somehow with Akaashi worrying every step of the way that Bokuto's wings will peek through the top of his shirt when he flies in the air. By Nationals, he fears that they will be seen even if Bokuto stays perfectly still on court without running or jumping, which is what he _doesn't_ do anyway. By the week before the third years' graduation, Akaashi starts binding Bokuto's wings because they have begun to show under his shirt, their outlines clearly defined against the thin cloth.  
  
They stop eating at the canteen and stop hanging out in the corridor outside Akaashi's classroom when Bokuto comes looking for him, moving entirely to the rooftop where no one is because they aren't supposed to be up here. But Bokuto is graduating soon and Akaashi supposes this counts as an exception so they stay up there on days where the weather is fine and sunny like this.  
  
It gives Bokuto a chance to breathe without the constricting pressure of the bandages around his chest because it is the only time Akaashi lets him take them off at school. Bokuto fiddles with the clips holding them in place and the bandages slide out from under his shirt, slipping to the floor in long tendrils. Akaashi sees the outline of his wings reappear through his shirt, the cloth folding along the edges of his wings.  
  
"Much better," Bokuto sighs and he shrugs off his shirt entirely.  
  
He hops over to the edge of the rooftop, his nose just stopping short of the wire netted fence, and spreads his arms out wide. The sunlight catches on him, drawing his shadow on the surface of the roof, the tips of his wings peeking out from behind his shadow's shoulders. They have grown again.  
  
"Come away from the edge, Bokuto-san." Akaashi tells him. "Someone might see you."  
  
Bokuto jumps back down, squatting close to where Akaashi is. "Do you think I might be able to fly with these one day?" he asks, flapping his wings against his back, which does nothing but work up a breeze.  
  
"I don't know. But they would need to be very big to be able to get a full-grown human off the ground."  
  
"I'd be in trouble then, wouldn't I?" Bokuto sighs. "They won't let me keep playing volleyball. Seems unfair if your opponent can actually fly."  
  
"I'm not sure they'll let you keep doing anything if that happens. No one's ever seen a winged human before. They might want to investigate you."  
  
"I don't want to be a science experiment." Bokuto wrinkles his nose.  
  
"Research subject," Akaashi corrects. "But I wouldn't want you to be one either, Bokuto-san."  
  
Bokuto props his face in his hands. "So what do I do about these then? They only seem to be getting bigger. And it seems like such a shame to get rid of them," he says wistfully.  
  
Akaashi wouldn't want to see them gone either, now that they have grown this big. They reach midway down Bokuto's back with a fully formed bone structure amidst the feathers. Even with the bandages holding them down, they still make Bokuto's back look bulky and Akaashi is only thankful that Bokuto is constantly in motion so that no one can actually take a proper look at his back.  
  
They are still growing and it would be nice if Bokuto could fly with them one day. It seems fitting. If Akaashi had to pick someone out of everyone he has met in his lifetime to be given the wings to fly, he would pick Bokuto. He has never met anyone so suited to flight.  
  
"Hey, Akaashi," Bokuto says hesitantly.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"Even if I graduate and leave for university or get kicked out of university for my unfair advantages, you'll still meet up with me from time to time, won't you?" Bokuto asks. "Like you won't want to cut all contact with me the moment I stop being your official teammate right?"  
  
"No, I won't," Akaashi says and finds that he really means it. He won't be able to stop thinking about Bokuto even if they aren't on the same team or in the same school anymore. It isn't just about his wings or his new volleyball team in university but about Bokuto himself.  
  
Maybe this is what Konoha had meant when he told Bokuto that Akaashi might confess to him. Akaashi doesn't know what kind of emotions might spark off a confession when he has never been involved in one before. Maybe they something have to do with Bokuto's kind of "like" when he had asked Akaashi if he liked him. Akaashi doesn't know if his kind of "like" can match up to Bokuto's but he thinks he understands it now after answering Bokuto's question. It isn't exactly a confession, not in the way Bokuto expects, but Akaashi finds himself thinking that he doesn't want to leave Bokuto's side.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Find me here: [tumblr](http://kythen.tumblr.com) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/catcrowcalls)


End file.
